Prescription counterfeiter gets 2 1/2 years

Two years after police rounded up more than 60 people accused of using forged prescriptions to get opiates from pharmacies across the South Shore, Eric M. Simmons, the man identified in police reports as a ringleader of the operation, has been convicted.

BROCKTON -- Two years after police rounded up more than 60 people accused of using forged prescriptions to get opiates from pharmacies across the South Shore, the man identified in police reports as a ringleader of the operation has been convicted.

Eric M. Simmons, 53, pleaded guilty to 14 counts each of fraudulently obtaining drugs and passing fake prescriptions. His co-defendant and estranged wife, Heather A. Vergobbe, 35, is scheduled to return to Brockton Superior Court on March 21 for a hearing in which she could plead guilty to similar charges.

Authorities have accused Simmons and Vergobbe of printing forged prescriptions on stolen doctor's stationery and distributing them to a network of runners who used them to get oxycodone at pharmacies across the South Shore. In December 2011, more than 200 police officers fanned out across the region and rounded up more than 60 people who had allegedly passed forged prescriptions.

In a July 2012 interview with The Patriot Ledger, Simmons acknowledged briefly leading the prescription counterfeiting operation, but said he was in a "forced situation" and that the ring grew quickly under new leadership in recent years.

"It's more than one person," he said in the interview, which was conducted eight months before his indictment. "It's a club."

Simmons' indictment in Brockton Superior Court the following March was based on 14 fraudulent prescriptions involving five runners, according to court documents. In a plea memo to the court, Simmons' attorney, William Leonard, said all five were never prosecuted or received immunity in exchange for testifying against Simmons before a grand jury.

Leonard declined to comment on the case Tuesday evening. A spokeswoman for the Plymouth County district attorney's office could not be reached.

According to the memo, one person accused of using the forged prescriptions testified before the grand jury that Simmons had stolen paper from the office of a doctor at South Shore Medical Center. The person testified that the paper, which had a South Shore Medical Center imprint, had been left in a copy machine in the doctor's waiting room.

In the memo, Leonard said the State Police had begun investigating Simmons while "under the impression that he was a major dealer" but were not able to charge him with anything more than being involved in prescription fraud. He said the people who testified against Simmons could have been charged with distributing oxycodone, a more serious crime.

"If the defendant were a major drug dealer, he would have had no problem raising $5,000 to post bail," the memo read.

Simmons has been in jail, unable to make bail, since shortly after his indictment last March. Judge Carol Ball gave him credit for 144 days served as part of his sentence of 2 to 2½ years in prison. He will be placed on probation for two years after he is released and will be required to seek drug counseling.

Page 2 of 2 - Simmons, a former owner of a masonry company who has lived in Norwell and Hull, contacted The Patriot Ledger after the newspaper published a story in June 2012 describing how his drug use and legal problems had affected his family, including his 18-year-old daughter. The interview that followed came less than two weeks after Simmons' other daughter died of a drug overdose in a Boston hospital.

"The devil was inside of her. She couldn't beat the addiction, and she made a mistake," Simmons said in the interview. "I have the devil in me, but I got him out."